[BILL 26.] CONSIDERATION. (Hansard, 13 April 1886)

§ MR. ALLISON (Cumberland, Eskdale)
I find that the noble Viscount opposite (Viscount Grimston) makes no concession whatever with regard to this Amendment, and therefore I feel bound to protest against the alteration of the clause as it stands in the Bill. One objection which I have to the Amendment, amongst others, is that these sporting rights are very often not in the hands of the lord of the manor himself, but are let to strangers—that is to say, the owners of the copyhold are left to be dealt with by gamekeepers and others. I think it is hard that they should be so left, and propose that the clause should be maintained in the same form as that in which it passed this House last year. I understand that the Amendment is put forward in order to induce certain Members of the other House to pass the Bill. That is, I confess, a new argument; but I trust this House of Commons will not show itself more tender of these rights claimed on the land of other persons than its Predecessor. The noble Viscount has given us no real argument in support of his Amendment, although, by way of illustration the other night, he supposed the floor of the House to be a copyhold in the midst of a manor which was represented by the benches; and he asked what would be the position of the unfortunate lord of the manor if the owner of the copyhold had the right to kill the game on his land? Well, Sir, to that I reply by asking what would be the position of the unfortunate owner of the copyhold if he is to be excluded for ever from those sporting rights which un- 1564 doubtedly interfere with the convenient occupation of his land? I think it is a very hard case, and I trust the clause will be inserted in the Bill as it originally passed the House of Commons last year, and that this Amendment will be rejected.

§ VISCOUNT GRIMSTON (Herts, St. Albans)
I beg to call the attention of the hon. Member who has just sat down to the fact that I was not in the House of Commons when the Bill came up and passed with this clause in it. I happen to know of cases in which great injustice would be done to the lord of the manor by such enfranchisement as is now demanded. For instance, let us assume a sum of money—say, a moorland is worth £400 a-year, and that a quarter of it is in the hands of one copyholder, or rather less than a quarter, it would be very hard indeed for that copyholder to be able to enfranchise the sporting rights over that small portion, and so destroy the letting value of the whole moor.

§ MR. SPEAKER
I must remind the noble Lord that he is not entitled to speak again.

§ MR. CONYBEARE (Cornwall, Camborne)
I rise to record a protest against the contention of the hon. Member below me, because this question involves the sound principle that sporting rights go with the land. That principle has been laid down in recent legislation, known as the Hares and Rabbits Act; and when we remember the gross injustice that prevailed in consequence of the occupiers of land, the hard-working tenant farmers and copyholders, being unable to secure themselves against the depredation of other people's game, it is monstrous to suppose that in this new Radical House of Commons we should venture to insist on the preservation of what my hon. Friend calls those iniquitous rights of landlords that the House last year refused to recognize. We have had enough of watering down principles in this House in order to meet the opposition of noble Lords in "another place." I shall certainly continue my protest against this Amendment, because I believe that it is simply devised to meet such opposition as that to which I refer. Though the noble Viscount opposite may talk of injustice to the lord of the manor, I daresay he knows cases where greater injustice would be done to the small copyholders 1565 under such a clause as he has here drafted. There is a case with which, if I am not misinformed, the noble Viscount ought to be familiar, where the manor is something like 30,000 acres in extent. I should like to know how many of the copyholders of that manor would be entitled to benefit under such a clause as is here proposed? I am both a copyholder and a lord of the manor myself, and in both capacities I wish to utter a protest against the clause. Having in the course of my life occupied both positions, I may be able to take an independent view of the question. I do not wish to detain the House at this late hour; I would only draw attention to the fact that it is clear that so long as lords of the manor are permitted to hold these sporting rights over the lands of other people, these other people being those who do the hard work in the way of cultivation, so long must gross injustice exist. For that reason, as well as for other reasons, I certainly hope the House will not sanction such a course as is now suggested.

§ MR. C. H. JAMES (Merthyr Tydvil)
The object of the Amendment is not that the lord of the manor shall have rights over inclosed grounds which have been given to other parties; but it is simply this—that where there are moorlands, as it were, waste lands, of, say, 20,000 or 30,000 acres in extent, as there are in some cases, and where parts of these moorlands have been appropriated to persons in consequence of the right of common being merged, or something of that sort, and these rights having been reserved under the Commons Inclosure Acts, that only in these cases the lord of the manor would still retain his right. I am not more favourable to the lord of the manor than to the copyholder; but we must have reasonable justice done. Take a case. You may have a moorland, say, of 20,000 acres, and of that 500 or 600 acres may be granted by the proprietor to another person, or to two or three other persons. One or more of these parties having land intermixed with the lords may give notice under the Bill as it stands, and in that way he may become entitled to shoot game with the lord of the manor; so that persons owning only 500 acres may destroy absolutely, or, at any rate, to a great extent, the amenity of the shooting of 20,000 acres. These are valuable 1566 rights, and inasmuch as they are valuable rights, until we deal with the Game Laws as a question of Game Laws, I think we ought to stand by them as they exist at present. The effect of this Amendment is that it is to apply only to moorland—that is to say, rough common land. Hon. Gentlemen speak as if it were proposed to run over arable land, or land which has been thoroughly in-closed, and upon which the copyholders have spent their labour and so forth. Nothing of the sort. It only affects moorland. If it is the fact that the lord already has the right of shooting over this land, it seems to me that the right ought to be reserved to him, unless he agrees to resign it, under the circumstances covered by the Amendment.

§ MR. JOHNSTON (Belfast, S.)
I think the noble Viscount has some reason to complain that the Government, after accepting this Amendment, did not support him.

§ MR. SPEAKER
What day does the hon. Member propose to fix for the third reading?

§ MR. C. H. JAMES
I should like to ask the House to agree to the third reading at once.

§ MR. STUART-WORTLEY (Sheffield, Hallam)
I would like to remark that the hon. Member for North-West Staffordshire (Mr. Leveson Gower), who is responsible for the Crown Revenues, voted just now in a manner that I am sure, on a future occasion, may operate to the detriment of the Revenues of the Crown. It is patent that the Crown may have valuable rights which may be injuriously affected by the confiscatory effects of this Bill, which were not suspected when it passed the House last year, and which, if they had been suspected, would have been removed by some such equitable clause as that proposed by the noble Viscount.